Changing Tide
by smiles1116
Summary: Prompt: "Melting away"


_First entry for xSummehx's winter contest. Prompt: "Melting away"_

Clara sighs as she sits at the window. The small two-room cabin is cold and lonely, the bite of winter in the air. The small space heater is far from enough to heat the room, and although it could warm her, she has left it across the room. It sits facing the bed and blowing warm air toward the blanket-covered frame, while she sits in a rocking chair next to the drafty window. A small fleece blanket is wrapped around her shoulders and held shut by one small hand. It doesn't help much, but it keeps the chill of the wind off her skin.

The only thing constant in the room is the chill. Granted, it is significantly warmer within the cabin than out, but that's just because the biting wind can only be felt through drafts inside. Clara's green eyes remain on the frigid glass, watching as wet snow spatters across the transparent surface then trickles downward as it fully liquefies… slowly melting away…

… just as she is.

She hadn't always been this way, listless and uninterested in the world around her. It had been one person in particular who had caused such a drastic change in the once lively girl, the girl who had taken after her late aunt, Lily Potter. She had been full of laughter and joy, although a bit more reserved after the woman's death. Now look at her, sitting alone in a cold cabin, without even the desire to retrieve the heater to keep herself warm. That one man had changed her entire personality, compelling her personality to ebb away like the receding tide until there was next to nothing left to her. He had manipulated and teased her until she succumbed…

… until she was no longer Clara.

The girl's brilliant fiery fringe falls lightly into her eyes, but she doesn't bother to sweep it away back behind her ear. She permits it to hang in her eyes since it really doesn't hinder her view of the glass, of the thawing snow, melting away…

Barty Crouch Jr. That is the name of the man who has changed Clara. He caused… no, not caused. _Caused_ could mean an accident. He _changed_ Clara with a purposeful hand; as the moon draws the tide, so, too, did Clara gravitate toward him. He held an appeal she could never resist, and he has always been able to read her, ever since the moment they met. He always knew just the right buttons to push, the right words to say, to get her to do just what he wanted.

Manipulation.

Torment.

Control.

Yes, control. It was all his, every bit of it. As she spent more and more time with him, she knew less and less what she wanted, what she needed. Barty was the puppet master, pulling her strings. He could make her walk and talk, dance and sing, wake and dream. He made silk-lined promises, whispered pretty words in her ear at night…

… but they were all lies.

It was all a trick, every promise a ruse. Every word was a sham, and every day was a con. He would tell her exactly what she wanted to hear, then what she needed to hear… then he would tell her nothing at all. He tormented her mind with his games…

… and that's all she was to him.

A game, a puzzle, a sick little competition between himself and his own powers. He tortured her for his own amusement, and he never relented. Her entire purpose in this game was for him to try to turn her. That's all he wanted. Barty wished to see pretty, innocent Clara turn to the dark side…

… and at first, she had resisted.

Clara had defied him the first time. He had asked her outright to join him in his cause, in Lord Voldemort's cause, and become a Death Eater as he was. He had asked her to let him mark her pale forearm with the mark of a deviant. But she had said no. She was strong then. But ever so slowly, he had worn her down…

… until there was nothing left to resist.

He had found a way through every defense, discovered a crack in every wall. He determined a flaw in every argument, exploited every last weakness until her walls came tumbling down…

… then he began to rebuild.

He took those nights together in a cold bed, used them to his advantage. He had always planned to, although he had never dreamed he could defile the innocent Clara in the process. That part was just a bonus. Using her to satisfy his own needs, all the while on a conquest to rule her mind as well as her body. He needed her to be like him, to be soulless and believe what she was doing was right. Once she believed that, turning her would be no feat at all…

… and he kept pushing until she surrendered.

And now there is only an itch that remains to give her a twinge of doubt, a twinge that she easily ignores… especially when Barty shares her bed, when he's around to whisper those sweet lies in her ea-

The door bangs open, but Clara doesn't jump. She merely turns her head in that direction. She's a quite capable witch, easily able to defend herself… so long as Barty says she can. And that is who walks through the door: Barty. His eyes are wild, and there is what appears to be traces of blood smeared across his cheek.

"Show it to me, Clara."

Obediently, the girl rises and moves toward him, allowing the blanket to fall away forgotten in the chair. Her eyes have brightened from a dull grey to the color of dewy grass in the wee hours of the morning. She lifts her arm, allowing him to tug up her sleeve and trace his finger down the serpent protruding from the mouth of the skull covering her skin. He gains a gleeful look, finding it darker than before.

"Soon, my pet. Soon you will be just… like… me."

He lifts her up and forces his lips to hers; his kiss is bruising, rough, and dominating, just as he is. The only reaction Clara has is to melt beneath him. She is a snowflake, and he is her fire. For him alone, she'll change forms. She'll do as he asks, be anything he wishes her to be. Because when she's with him, she doesn't feel unsure. She feels her actions are just and right… for her. She no longer feels alone and empty. She no longer feels like she's melting away.


End file.
